Your going to have to sew a piece of fabric to the tier above, so that you get the drop down you need, then sew your ruffle to that dropped down piece of fabric, rinse and repeat. Doing it that way will keep the poofyness down, if you were to just make the second ruffle 2 or 3 times longer than the first and then ruffle together, your gonna get POOFY. You may have to work from the lower ruffle to the higher ruffle and then sew it to the waist band of the skirt.

Your going to have to sew a piece of fabric to the tier above, so that you get the drop down you need, then sew your ruffle to that dropped down piece of fabric, rinse and repeat. Doing it that way will keep the poofyness down, if you were to just make the second ruffle 2 or 3 times longer than the first and then ruffle together, your gonna get POOFY. You may have to work from the lower ruffle to the higher ruffle and then sew it to the waist band of the skirt.

I'm sorry, I am not being able to comprehend what you're saying.

Do you mean making a tiered skirt then adding ruffles on top?

Or are you meaning a three layer skirt w/ each layer being a different length all with ruffles on their bottoms sewn into one waistband?

Both of those seem like they'd be pretty poofy to me. Or do you mean something else all together?

The way I was kinda picturing it in my head, I'd make a base skirt. Maybe like a pencil skirt or an a-line, then sew three wide ruffles to that skirt, or maybe just 2 ruffles and the third would be the hem of the base skirt. But I'd need some guidance on how to make the base skirt and how long the ruffles needed to be before gathering.

The way I was kinda picturing it in my head, I'd make a base skirt. Maybe like a pencil skirt or an a-line, then sew three wide ruffles to that skirt, or maybe just 2 ruffles and the third would be the hem of the base skirt. But I'd need some guidance on how to make the base skirt and how long the ruffles needed to be before gathering.

Basically this is what I was trying to say, but breaking up the base skirt into thirds. I've seen skirts like this in the store and looked at the construction and this seems to be how they do it, but this maybe wrong, let's face it most constructed clothing from mass production is often put together oddly.

My dd has a top of that style and it is constructed using tiers with ruffles added. It might be hard to understand without pics, but I think I would start out by cutting pieces for a regular tiered skirt. Then take the bottom tier and make a gathered ruffle for it and baste it onto that bottom tier. Then sew that piece to the next tier piece up. Then make a gathered ruffle piece to fit the 2nd from bottom tier and baste that on, attach to top tier, make a gathered ruffle for top tier, baste to top tier piece, then sew that onto your top piece which would either be waistband piece or what I like to do, a drop waist piece since I like my girls to have a tad longer skirts. When cutting your ruffle pieces to fit the tier pieces, I'd make the ruffle pieces about an inch wider than the tier pieces so that the ruffle (which will need to be hemmed) will still be long enough to cover the base tier skirt so you don't seen the seam for the next ruffle under it. Pheww...hope that makes some sense.